Floyd: ‘Pacquiao is a sore loser, coward’

Manny Pacquiao’s hope for redemption after his one-sided loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. suffered a major blow yesterday after Mayweather said he has changed his mind and won’t grant the Filipino idol a rematch.

Mayweather had told ESPN’s Stephen Smith last Tuesday that he would put off his planned retirement on September after fulfilling his six-fight contract obligation with Showtime and fight Pacquiao next year after Manny’s wound following surgery has healed.

Pacquiao has been told that it will take nine months to one year before he can enter the ring again.

But Mayweather was annoyed that Pacquiao and his camp continued to blame his injury for the loss and not give credit to the American who remains undefeated at 48-0 after his latest win.

Reminded that he had told Smith of granting Pacquiao a rematch, Floyd said that was correct but he has changed his mind.

“Did I text Stephen A. Smith and say I will fight him again? Yeah, but I change my mind. At this particular time, no, because he’s a sore loser and he’s a coward,” Mayweather said during an interview with Showtime’s Jim Gray which will air Saturday night (Sunday in Manila) during the network’s replay of last Saturday night’s pay-per-view mega fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

“If you lost, accept the loss and say, ‘Mayweather, you were the better fighter,’” Mayweather continued, in an article in ESPN.

Mayweather won a unanimous decision in the welterweight world championship fight that will go down as the richest in boxing history and one of the most anticipated fights ever.

But that fight has been widely criticized as a big letdown and did not live up to the hype.

Five years in the making and dubbed as the Fight of the Century, the fight saw Mayweather deftly using his speed and cunning to avoid Pacquiao who wanted to engage the undefeated champion in a toe-to-toe exchange.

There was no knockdown, no blood and not once was any of the fighters able to hurt the other.

After the fight, Pacquiao said he went into the ring with a right shoulder injury that hampered his performance. Pacquiao had arthroscopic surgery on Wednesday in Los Angeles to repair what his surgeon, Dr. Neal ElAttrache, termed a “significant tear” to his rotator cuff.

Mayweather (48-0, 26 KOs), however, is annoyed that Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) and his team have blamed the loss on the shoulder injury rather than give him credit for his outstanding performance.

“I’m not going to buy into the bulls – … and I don’t want the public to buy into the bulls – ,” Mayweather said. “He lost. He knows he lost. I lost a lot of respect for him after all of this.”

Gray asked Mayweather if he could detect a problem with Pacquiao’s right arm during the fight, to which Mayweather answered, “Absolutely not. He was fast. His left hand was fast. His right hand was fast and he was throwing them both fast and strong. Excuses, excuses.”

After the fight, Mayweather said his shoulders and hands were hurt going into the fight but he didn’t make excuses. He said he instead found a way to win, as he always does.